Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari January 4th, 20:20

Good evening. 

Today, I would like to update that three Israeli citizens, who until now were defined as missing persons, are now recognized as hostages. This decision was made following the completion of search and investigation operations in Israel and after examining all plausible scenarios and the information we have. We will continue to update the families with every piece of information we have. The committee was headed by the Commanding Officer of the Manpower Directorate, MG Yaniv Asor, MG (res) Nitzan Alon, and MG Lior Carmeli, and we have updated all the families with the details. They join Hadar, Oron, Hisham, and Avera, bringing the total number of hostages held in Gaza to 136. We continue to act with all operational and intelligence means in order to create the conditions to bring the hostages home.

In the Gaza Strip, our forces are continuing to advance in the war. We are currently focusing on the southern part of the Gaza Strip. As part of the ground operations in central Gaza, IDF soldiers conducted a targeted raid on a Hamas military compound that included a sprawling underground network of Hamas terror tunnels connected to an underground weapons manufacturing site. The site had several booby-trapped blast doorsteps to hinder entry. Behind the doors were machinery, explosives, and other materials used to produce long-range rockets and additional weapons that have been used for years to carry out terrorist activities against the State of Israel. The day before yesterday, we destroyed the tunnel network of the manufacturing site in central Gaza and all the machinery, continuing to target the manufacturing sites and the rocket-launching capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization as one of the main objectives of our military operation.

In the Central Command, operational activities continue. This afternoon, a 40-hour-long operation in Nur Shams, near Tulkarm, was completed. During the operation, many explosive devices were destroyed and dozens of terror suspects were apprehended. Since the beginning of the war, IDF forces in the Central Command have completed more than 40 operations against terrorist activities in the Judea and Samaria area.

In the North, we struck Hezbollah targets today in southern Lebanon in the Maroun Al-Ras, Ayta Ash Shab, and Yaroun areas, and struck terrorist cells operating near the border. Our forces are responding to anti-tank missile launches and rocket fire that crossed into our territory with artillery fire. We will continue to respond to every threat and are strongly prepared in the North and along all our borders.

On the home front, I call on the public to continue to follow the updated instructions of the Home Front Command. We have an excellent Aerial Defense Array, and this is also the time to say to the many reservists in the Aerial Defense Array that they are doing great work. But this defense is never hermetic. We are intensifying the defense, but follow the updated instructions - they save lives.